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Tuesday, May 13, 2014

5 Types Foods That Freeze Well Everyone Should Know About

We bought a freezer a few years ago and I LOVE it! It's so great for stocking up on groceries when they are on sale.

If you use it right, your upright or chest freezer can be your best friend. Pack it full of freezer meals and freezable foods, and you'll never be tempted to stop at the fast food drive-through again.

However, it's important to know what foods you can and cannot freeze. Freeze the wrong foods and you'll have a mushy mess when you defrost them! This is a sampling of foods that hold up well in your freezer.

Meat
Raw meat, fish, and poultry all freeze well. However, you have to store them appropriately. If you get your food from the meat counter in a styrofoam deli tray, you'll need to open it up and repackage it. That type of packaging can leave your meat dry and tough when you try to cook it. Take the meat out, trim any fat and tendons off, and wrap the meat tightly in plastic wrap. Drop it into a freezer-safe Ziploc bag and label it.

Rice
Rice can be a big time sink when it comes to meal time, particularly if you eat lots of brown rice. Cook up the rice in a large batch and separate it into 1-cup or 2-cup portions. Once it reaches room temperature, store each batch in a freezer Ziploc bag. You just have to warm it up to serve it.

Butter
Butter can be expensive, so it's great to know that you can buy it when it's on sale and freeze it. You don't have to do anything special with it—just stick the box in the freezer and pull sticks out as you need them.

Bread
Bread, cakes, muffins, and more all freeze well. Freeze up a dozen muffins and pull them out as needed for breakfast time or stock up on bread. You can also freeze dough for baked goods—if you make a large batch of dough, just separate it into batches. Homemade pizza is a lot easier when you have homemade dough in the freezer!

Fruits and Veggies with Low Water Content
If you want to maintain the texture of your fruits and vegetables, only freeze produce that has low water content. Produce with high water content turns mushy after thawing. You can still freeze produce with high water content, as long as you only plan on using it for cooking. Veggies and fruits with low water content include:

Surprisingly, pasta can do very well in the freezer if you prepare it right. After thawing, pasta becomes much softer than it was when it went into the freezer. You should only cook pasta about 75% of the way to avoid mushy, overcooked pasta. Stop cooking the pasta before it even reaches the al dente stage. Let the pasta dry and then store it in freezer-safe containers.